Query posts based on user preferences

Question

I have 'category_preferences' saved in each user_meta which is an array of term IDs of a custom taxonomy. The custom taxonomy has ~100 items. As an example of the meta field value, where 14 and 15 are the term IDs:

array (size=1)
 0 => string 'a:2:{i:0;s:2:"14";i:1;s:2:"15";}' (length=32)

What would be the most efficient way of performing a custom post type query that returns a list of posts that match at least one of the 'saved' category preferences?

Answer 1

Use get_posts with a taxonomy query:

$prefs = array(array('14','15'));
$args = array(
    'tax_query' => array(
        array(
            'taxonomy' => 'custom_tax_name',
            'terms' => $prefs[0],
            'operator' => 'IN'
        )
    )
);
$postslist = get_posts( $args );